


Nice Shirt: Loaned

by gloss



Series: Nice Shirt [3]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Cheating, M/M, awkward teen boys being stupid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-13
Updated: 2012-01-13
Packaged: 2017-10-29 11:40:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/319502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloss/pseuds/gloss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Xander drags Oz home and loans him the shirt. Things happen in between.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nice Shirt: Loaned

######   
[s3 before "Anne" (3x1)]  


By the time they gave up and quit patrol, it was raining pretty heavily. Just the three of them, like it had been all summer. Two vamps killed, but three got away, and none of this was getting any easier. Willow held her right wrist and her eyes were big with unacknowledged pain, while Xander limped to the van on an untrustworthy gimpy ankle. Oz probably had it worst; the girl vamp had some seriously impressive acrylic nails, long as talons, painted in the SHS maroon and gold, and she'd gone for his throat when she tackled him, then raked open his arm, snarling, when Xander hauled her off.

"Rain," Willow says. "That's good, it's been way too dry this summer."

"Plenty wet now." Using his injured arm, he yanks open the van door so Xander can get in. He grimaces and Xander puts his hand on Oz's shoulder.

"You okay?"

"Never better," Oz says. "Bleeding's stopped. Almost."

"Good sign." Xander thinks he should say more, but Oz has this *effect* on him, something linguistic, where he can't really talk as much as he wants to, as much as he usually does. It might be something to do with kissing Oz, almost a year ago now, like silence is a virus. But if that's true, then Willow should be similarly infected; more so, since she's probably done more with Oz than Xander ever did. Not that Xander wants to think along those lines.

"One night of rain doesn't fix everything," she says, settling into the passenger seat and yanking on the seatbelt. "That's a common mistake in logic, taking the specific as evidence of a general trend, but drought, it's a matter of the long term patterns --"

No, Willow's not affected at all.

The rain isn't just drumming on the roof of the van; it's symphonic, both beating and flowing, and he dozes a little when they stop at Willow's house. Oz walks her to the door, like they're in a production of _Our Town_, but rushed. Hurrying through the rain, Oz holding his long-sleeved shirt over their heads, they're a single shape, blurred in the mist, moving away from him fast.

Sometimes, watching how they talk, how they touch, it makes Xander miss Cordy. Not right now, though; if he ever tried to take her arm and walk her to her door, Cordy would slap him away, remind him for the millionth time she's not Willow, thank God, cast some aspersions on his masculinity, and then take off, heels clicking angrily.

Okay, *now* he misses her.

He tries not to watch Willow and Oz on her porch, their heads bent together, lips brushing, and, probably, megahigh IQ points getting passed back and forth as they kiss. He tries not to watch, tries not to feel left out, left behind, like he's missing out.

Maybe what he's missing is the opportunity. A chance *for* something, but Xander's not sure what. It's not like he has a prior claim or anything; Oz isn't some patch of prairie available for homesteading, a patch that Xander grabbed, or could have grabbed, months before Willow. It's not like that, not that *tacky*.

The way Oz and Willow touch, it's so gentle, like sleepy cats, winding around each other, nuzzling and nudging, affectionately grooming. It's acquaintance, intimacy, kinship. Kinship's a weird word to use for them, since it'd be pretty incestuous if it was true, but Xander can't think of a better one. They look so much alike, almost the same size and both so pale, wrapped in baby-fine skin.

There's not that much to see, actually. Willow and Oz remind Xander of kids, of old movies and two straws in one malted and putting on a show in Grampa's barn. He hasn't felt that, he doesn't think. Even with Oz, that one time, there were flickers of it, but only flickers. Hints. Mostly, even through all the alien strange upsettingness, or what should have been upsettingness, of doing all that with a *boy*, he felt like other times. Like with Cordelia, the huge rush of warmth and excitement, confidence and tingles overwhelming him.

Willow and Oz are innocent together, and it makes this -- *thing* -- this Oz-thing of history easier.

A lot easier to put it all aside, all that beer-soaked groping and hard, boy-body pressure against his chest, and those sharp, deep kisses. Blowjob, handjob. That thing is history, well-remembered but past and different.

Past, passed.

That Oz, the one he fooled around with, was a stranger, and fierce, and *sexy*, and not at all like this Oz, the gentle and quiet and Willow's.

Xander believes, almost to the point of dogma and mantra, that history's best kept in books. Big old unread books, yes. The kind that are locked away in Giles's office.

"So, what? I'm Morgan Freeman now?" Oz, sharp-voiced, sliding into the driver's seat.

Xander starts and knocks his head against the window. "Huh?"

Tapping the back of the passenger seat, Oz glances over his shoulder. "Yes, Miz Daisy. You just stay back there, and I'll drive."

Against the black vinyl seat, Oz's hand is shaking a little. Hard to tell from back here, and it moves away as Xander pulls himself into the front, his ankle protesting. Up close, Oz's face is paler than usual, his eyes a little too big and bright.

"I can drive," Xander says. "You don't look so hot."

"Dead body," Oz says, turning the key. Xander's about to let loose another scintillatingly intelligent *huh?* when Oz looks over and smiles. "Over my."

"Hey, I'm not *that* bad a driver --"

"Yeah. Not you, it's just --"

"I get the it's not you, it's me speech?" Xander asks.

Oz's hands are small and white as he grips the steering wheel, backing up. He's shivering a little. "Yeah."

"Cold?"

"A little," Oz admits, peeling the collar of his soaked shirt from his neck. As they drive, everything's lit random and sharp, streetlights and oncoming cars, and Oz looks sick and small in the crashing angles of light.

"Come onna my house," Xander says when Oz turns onto his block. "Warm up, and I'll find you something dry."

Oz exhales and Xander knows he's about to say no.

"Oz. You're wet as a dog and hurt."

"Yeah, okay."

Xander's pretty sure that Oz doesn't like being alone with him; or maybe Xander's just projecting. Apparently, he projects a lot. Maybe it's both, and that double load of discomfort *ought* to be enough to break Oz's twiggy little shoulders. But Oz is way stronger than he looks. Even a year ago, his invisible ropy muscles were enough to wrestle Xander down. Now with the wolf inside him, he's probably like Buffy-strong.

The van's idling in front of Xander's house and they're just sitting here, not talking, not even really looking at each other. What are they waiting for? There are things that Xander knows he should say, things he *wants* to say, but Oz makes words feel extravagant and messy. Like big dripping ugly things up for dissection in science class, dead and stinking. Like roadkill, so a raccoon, spread across the highway, is four times as big as it ever was alive. Xander's mouth is working, but he can't think of what to say, how to say, *sorry I never returned those messages you left, sorry it took me three weeks to look you in the eye when you started hanging around, sorry sorry sorry.*

"You know," he starts and rubs his palms together. *I am sorry*, he thinks, and looks at Oz out of the corner of his eye, Oz slumped slightly in his seat, two fingers almost meditatively rubbing the scratch on his face. "I'm --. It's probably nicer inside."

Oz looks at *him* sideways, the corner of his mouth twitching, then curving up. "You're right." He reaches over and Xander wills himself to be still, not to jump at contact, because Oz is his *friend*, it's all right. More than all right, he really actually *wants* Oz to touch him. Oz flips open the glove compartment and pulls out an old Sucrets tin. Okay, so no touching.

"My folks are in Reno," Xander says at the front door as he fumbles for his keys. "Gun show, family reunion, casino-trawling."

"Fun," Oz says and Xander shrugs, stepping aside so Oz can go in first.

"Something like that." Xander loves having the house to himself, even if he's supposedly grounded and staying here alone, missing the extended-family gambling and drinking is supposed to be a punishment. He clatters up the stairs, then stops short at the top, realizing he's a sucky host. Oz bumps into him softly. "Sorry. Just occurred to me -- are you hungry? I've got a freezer full of Swanson's, and there's lasagna that's still good, I think. And soda. Maybe you're thirsty?"

Oz shakes his head, his arms wrapped tightly around his chest. His silence reminds Xander all over to again to take it easy on the words.

"Right, okay. Shower." He rustles in the linen closet for the good guest towels, long and fluffy and midnight blue, the ones he's not allowed to use. He hands three to Oz. "They won't be back until Monday, so, you know. You can make all the racket you want."

Smiling, Oz pats the towels. "I'll keep that in mind."

Xander's still got his arm out, though the towels are safe with Oz, and the polite thing, the smart thing to do, is pretty simple. Drop his hand and step back, get out of the way, let the guy take his shower.

So of course Xander steps a little closer, hand on Oz's shoulder. The rain is weighing down Oz's hair, making each spike droop and curl over the puzzled twist of his brows as he looks up at Xander. There's a fine layer of mist, maybe sweat, along Oz's hairline, down his nose, across the cuts on his cheeks. His eyes are green, the cuts angry red, and Xander *wants*. Wants something, someone, *Oz*. He feels history uncoil, rear up like a dragon, ready to repeat itself. All he needs now is to put his big, clumsy hand on Oz's cheek, like this, and --.

Oz closes his eyes, his mouth thinning, stretching, into a frown. "Xander."

"Yeah, right, sorry." Xander pulls back, turning for his room, scrubbing both hands through his hair. "Use my parents' shower, down through there. It's --"

Pressure on his hip, Oz slipping two fingers through his belt loop, and Xander stumbles, turning back around. Full pressure of Oz now, all the way down his chest, and Oz tilts, leans in more, brushes his lips over Xander's.

"-- bigger. It's bigger, and --"

It's too close to tell, but he thinks Oz smiles, kisses him again, wide dry lips a little sweet-salty, before he pulls back. "Got a lot to talk about."

That's not good. That's what guidance counselors and moms say when you've screwed up. That's what Giles says when he takes you aside and suggests that maybe you're not cut out for assistant-slayage. Not good.

Then again, kissing. Kissing *is* good.

The skin down his chest is damp and cold now that Oz isn't pressed up against him, but underneath, all through his body, he feels flushed and prickly like he's wrapped in a malfunctioning and ancient electric blanket. Xander bobs his head. "Sure, sure," he says. "You go shower, and I'll --. Don't know. Find you something dry."

Oz glances over his shoulder. "Down there?"

"Yeah, through their room, at the back. It's bigger, and, you know. Cleaner."

He sees Oz's weird little smile, like he's both amused and touched by the ways of this strange world, like he's an anthropologist from a better, more evolved society, all the way back to his own room. It's still twisting, teasing and knowing, across the back of Xander's lids every time he blinks. Still there, and this low-level burn on his lips from the kiss to boot, as he digs through his dresser for something, anything, that'll fit Oz. Rubbing the back of his hand across his mouth doesn't help, it's like frostbite, like hints and promises. He can do this. Even if he's not quite sure what *this* is, he can do it. He's pretty sure he can.

Soon as he finds something that won't fall off Oz's tiny frame. In the bottom drawer, he finds his track pants from eighth grade, before a growth spurt, that might do. At the back of his army-surplus foot-locker, hiding a couple _Playboy_s and his two precious issues of _Blue Boy_, bought in Oceanside when his mom made him accompany Rory on one of his nebulous, open-ended errands, he finds *that* shirt.

The peep-show one, the one that kept him up all night after Oz drove him and his bandmates home from the party, the one that despite -- or maybe because of -- spritzing with bleach *and* Downy and washing alone in a hot rinse, came out faded and shrunken, little spots of pink among the red. Spots that accuse Xander of dirty, regrettable, wronger-than-wrong deeds.

Good deeds, too. Very good, with the warmth and the closeness and sweet depths of Oz's mouth.

Rubbing his mouth again, he brings the clothes and his first-aid kit into his parents' room and sits on the edge of their bed. King-sized, big enough so they don't have to touch while they sleep, it's way comfier and wider than his own. The sound of the shower contends with the rain drumming against the windows and when Xander closes his eyes, it's like a concert in his head. Rushing water, beating and ticking. Lulling.

"Hey," Oz says, and Xander opens his eyes. Oz is in the doorway to the bathroom, steam behind him, one towel wrapped around his waist - so long it looks like a skirt, like that thing Cordy wears to the pool. A sarong. - the other draped around his neck. He moves carefully, gracefully, and Xander wonders whether maybe Oz has worn a skirt before. Guys in the locker-room, they struggle with towels, grip the fold at their waists, yank them off as soon as they can.

Locker-rooms, guys, Larry. Xander shakes his head as he stands up.

"Sit down, sit down," he says, switching places, and Oz smells like pine and Ivory soap as he passes. He gives Oz the bed and sinks down to the floor, first-aid kit in his lap.

The cut on Oz's arm opened up again in the shower and the water on his hand is pink. Little drops, like carnations or the things in bridesmaids' bouquets.

"Water all right?" Xander remembers to ask, looking up.

Oz ought to look small. Fragile, even, after tonight, after the summer they've had. But he doesn't. Now Xander thinks maybe Oz *never* looked all that small, maybe it was just his own mind and memory playing their usual unfunny tricks on him. Or maybe Oz *is* different. Everything else has changed, so much is different (wolf, Willow), that Xander might as well be on his knees in front of a stranger.

"Hot, yeah," Oz says, touching the cuts on his face. His skinny chest is flushed in random patterns like the shadows of leaves on Xander's ceiling when cars pass late at night. Except pink.

"Cool. Or, not cool, but good," Xander says, fumbling with the rusty latch on the first-aid kit. "It's kind of wrong, isn't it? Having your own first-aid kit? Like, isn't that for, I don't know. Parents? Nursery school teachers?"

Nodding, Oz just smiles a little. His eyes are red around the rims, and for a second Xander thinks he got soap in them. Maybe he was crying? Oz doesn't cry. It just seems impossible.

Xander scoots forward, close enough that Oz's breath was on his face while he painted antibiotic into the cut down Oz's cheek. And Oz's breath smells like the smoke off Willow's burning sage.

"Are you *baked*?" Xander asks.

Oz's eyes close, and the blink lasts three beats too long before they open again. "A little, yeah."

"So that's how come you're always so calm. I get it now." Xander taps his forehead and nods as sagely as he can. "It all comes together, my dear Watson."

"No, Holmes was the cokehead."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Actually, I'm pretty sparing with it. Blue moon sort of thing."

"So why now?"

Oz's eyes flicker as he tilts his head. The light from the bathroom catches the water on the tips of his red lashes and Xander holds his breath. Something tells him to - Oz's quiet, which is different from his usual quiet, which is kind of sad, kind of reflective - and then Oz says, "Nervous, I guess."

Oz doesn't get nervous; why would Oz get nervous? He kissed Xander first, last time *and* tonight, and Xander just kissed him. If Xander was Oz, he'd be reclining into his own utter coolness.

"Shaking my foundations here," Xander says. Oz smiles and his fingers relax from their grip on his knees, so the towel smoothes out.

"Sorry about that."

"Oz, I --" *I'm sorry*, Xander's head says again, but the words still won't come. He makes himself look up and meet Oz's eyes. He touches his own lower lip, then Oz's. "Can I?"

"Why?"

*Because your hair's wet, and your face is cut. Because you're too quiet and I'm too loud, but when we're kissing it all evens out.* The thoughts, though, they're coming in a language Xander's mouth doesn't know how to form. He shrugs and his tongue feels thick. Floppy. "Dunno. Feel like it."

"Why?" Oz asks again, and the first time it was a fair question. Second time, though, it's a habit. And strangely, quietly, *Ozly* obnoxious.

"I need a reason?"

"I guess not." Biting his lip, Oz glances away, over toward the bathroom, and his face is white as marble, slashed with the scabbing-over cuts.

"Forget it. Sorry. Clearly I don't know what I was thinking." He wants to sound angry, but it's not quite coming. More than anything, to his own ears Xander sounds pretty whiney. "Just want to."

"That's --" Oz looks down at his palms. "Well, that's *a* reason, anyway. Not sure if it's a good one."

"Didn't say it had to be *good*," Xander says.

Oz smiles, and it's not a tease. He looks genuinely, if vaguely, happy. Maybe pleased. "True."

Oz always does that. Whether they're in the library or the van or picking out toppings for Make Your Own Pizza and Distract Giles Night, he'll do that, come in sideways to a conversation, confuse the hell out of Xander and fluster him, then bring it back down to a mellow, friendly groove.

Xander scrubs his palms up and down his thighs, working off excess energy and the antibiotic cream, and tries to smile back. "Can I have some of your demon weed? Think I need it."

"Don't know."

Okay, obnoxious again. Xander straightens his back and looks Oz square in the eye. "Why not?"

"'cause then --" Oz's hand inside Xander's collar, tickling, drawing him in -- "you'd be under the influence both times. Starts looking like a good excuse."

"Both --? *Oh*."

Xander can do this. It's tonight's mantra, and he can show Oz. He rises onto his knees, puts his arm around Oz's clammy waist, right over the edge of the towel, and presses in. Kisses Oz, not just a brush that can be forgotten, but hand on Oz's shoulder, mouth open, a real kiss. A kiss that means business. And Oz is *there*, hand up the back of Xander's skull, fingers in his hair, pulling him in. The bed creaks as Oz shifts back, opening his legs and leaning down slightly. A cascade of *sparkles*, fast and rushing like bubbles in cheap champagne, showers down Xander's back, into the pits of his palms and the root of his cock, and his hands rove over Oz's back and sides before he pulls back. Oz's mouth is still open for half a second as Xander tilts his head the other way. "Sober, see?"

Oz yanks at his hair. "I see."

"Yeah," Xander says, and it's a kind of triumph. Vamps might escape, Buffy might leave them all in her dust, Cordy might abandon him for summer resort fun, Willow might find her soulmate, but Xander? Xander can kiss and he doesn't need to be under the influence. He can kiss and leave Oz -- *Oz* -- wanting more, tilting in and running his tongue over his lips.

He can want, full-stop. He wants, and it's okay to want. He doesn't know *what* he wants, but it's something like the fog out there, shifting and blurry, and it's inside Oz. Or maybe it's around Oz, clinging to him, and if Xander's hands just figure out where to touch, and when, like right now, it'll come off Oz and pass into Xander. So he braces one foot on the floor, pulling Oz in again, then nudging him back, and the towel's coming loose and Xander's lying on top of Oz, and kissing him. The sparkles are a gang of comets now, blazing through him, burning him up in their wake, and Oz's mouth is open and his hands are open, and he's staring up at Xander with wide eyes and wonder and a red rim, paper-thin, of fear.

"Feel like it," Xander says, his breath coming fast, making the words light as paper flowers. "You?"

Oz's eyes widen more, whites around the green-black, and he nods. Reaches, neck stretching, mouth open, and kisses Xander again, teeth in his lip, pulling him down. Fingers wrapped in Xander's hair still, pulling in time with the rise and fall of his chest, the rattle of his heartbeat, and Xander reaches back, grabbing Oz's wrist, pushing his arm over his head.

"Not too hard," Xander says, harsh and a little too loud. He runs his finger over Oz's mouth, taps his teeth.

"Not too hard," Oz echoes, and gets his mouth around Xander's finger, pulls it in over soft tongue, along sharp teeth. Sucks it in and out, hot and wet, sharp and soft, and Xander's balanced on one elbow, hips riding towel and *Oz*, watching his finger move. And this could go so many ways, Oz's pink lips and green eyes and the brown of Xander's finger, the concentrated, spiralling heat of his dick, this could repeat history, write it anew, this could go to hell.

Under him, Oz's body is hard and small, smooth skin but hard, jutting bones -- shoulder, ribs, pelvis -- and Xander's been here before, but that was Cordy there. Cordy underneath him, her legs tangled in his, soft and firm and *curved*. No dick pushing up under the towel, no sharp elbows and burr of stubble down her throat, and Xander's mouth sweeps down over Oz's Adam's apple, suckles hard and Oz twists, sighing into a whine, tightening his leg around the back of Xander's thigh.

When you get right down to it, though, it's all nerve-endings and skin, right? Right? Electricity and twitches, sensation and more sensation, and he can make Oz sigh like that again, louder, and higher.

"Bed," Oz says, "Xander, the bed --"

Xander looks up, bleary, mouth burning and gums aching for *more*, hand down Oz's side, squeezing his hip hard enough that the bone down there slides like a dull knife over his hand. "Huh?"

"Parents' bed," Oz says. "Should probably --"

"Like it in here. Bigger," Xander says. "Won't mess it up."

Oz touches Xander's forehead, his hair again, and his mouth curves. "Perv."

"Well, *yeah*," Xander says, turning his head, letting his tongue trace the tangle of veins in Oz's wrist. Sweet, soft skin inside, and rough red hair outside, Xander tastes it all and Oz writhes. "It's, like, just incentive. To, you know. *Not* mess it up. Get it?" Thumb across the top of Oz's crotch, the towel totally open now, brushing hair and hot skin, and Oz shivers with his whole body, so Xander does it again. "Not spill a drop, I mean."

"Got it," Oz says and Xander grins. Fourth of July *and* a laser-light show inside his skin, brightness piercing through his pores and he doesn't know how Oz isn't blinded by the glare. He's got history to make right and apologies to perform. Skin to taste, sounds to coax out of Oz.

"Want to, want to --."

"Yeah," Oz says, wriggling back, taking Xander's shirt over his head, then pulling him back in. Skinny fingers up and down Xander's back, murmurs in his ear, and Oz is thrusting against Xander's stomach, and the last thing on his mind, Xander's sure, is the whole talking thing. No talking, not about anything other than *this*, with the shudders and hot slide of skin and Xander going back on his knees. He can only look in long, quick glances, because it's too much, long white body of Oz and all that skin and his dark red cock up against his concave stomach. Nothing like post-wolf Oz, curled up and tiny; the opposite, so much, and Oz's mouth a tight line, his hands around Xander's elbows, trying to pull him back.

He owes Oz. For not returning calls, and ignoring him, and more than that, he wants. He wants to make this right, because sooner or later, they *are* going to talk, and it's going to be girls, Willow, over Xander, because that's the much better choice. If Xander was in Oz's shoes, he'd choose Willow, too. He's already chosen Cordy. He might even love her, *does* love her, but right now, all year, he's also wanted Oz. Wanted him like this, with a hard dick and whistling, panting breaths and tiny nipples that rise against the flat of Xander's tongue and taste like boy and wolf and soap. With little hairs around them that tickle Xander's chin and nose and when Xander bites a little harder, Oz pushes up, crushing Xander's face against his chest. Wraps both legs around Xander's thighs and thrusts and thrusts, rolling his hips, and this is not a girl, this is different but it feels the same, so hot inside Xander's skin, packed with light and gunpowder. Xander grinds back against Oz's leg, sliding down, going mouth and teeth down the center of Oz's chest, to his stomach, to his cock.

With one breath, his mouth is parched, and then the next, with Oz's cock slapping against Xander's cheek, his mouth fills with spit and he slobbers a little, hungry and half-bestial, but Oz is a wolf, he must get that, and Xander wraps his hand around the base of Oz's dick as he tastes the sweat caught in the rough hair down here, sweat and shower-water reheated by Oz's skin, tangy and clean.

In his palm -- he remembered this part just right, he's so proud, he remembered the heat and the slidey-silk hardness of it, the fat curve of the head and the lacey twist of the vein -- Oz's dick jumps and Xander crooks his thumb over the head as he jerks it. Too slowly, he can hear the whines building up in Oz's throat, his name stuttered out. Bracing his other hand on Oz's knee, rough and sharp as a seashell, he pushes the leg up and hears Oz's breath catch.

Xander won't stop, can't stop, tasting the sweat and water and *skin* that's getting hotter, tangier, softer the deeper he goes, over the crevice of balls and behind. Oz isn't breathing and his joints seem locked in place, but when Xander bites the curve of skin, he tastes salt and hears Oz sigh out all the air in his lungs in a great whooshing rush.

"Don't have to, it's okay --" Oz, far away, far above Xander, and Xander's mouth is aching and needy. Empty.

"Want to. Told you." He presses his face into where the skin is slick and secret, corkscrewing his tongue deeper yet. The sigh releases something in Oz, makes him ripple and thrust, twist his hips and open his legs wider. And Xander's all mouth and hands, heat filling his throat and spinning up his arm as he's hunched here, licking Oz open.

"C'mere," Oz is saying, again, and then again, his voice breaking. "Xander --"

Hands in his pits, pulling him up -- Oz *is* strong, really strong -- and Xander's cock slips up Oz's leg as Oz's dick rides down Xander's chest. Arm around Oz's neck, and Xander's hunching his shoulders, straddling Oz's thighs, burying his face in Oz's neck. "Sorry," he's saying, mouthing over Oz's shoulder, "sorry, sorry."

"Not sorry --" Oz is twisting, wrapping one leg around Xander's waist, so their dicks are lined up, underside to underside, and he's turning Xander's face. "Just want you up here." Kissing his eyes, his cheeks, drawing patterns like flowers and rain over Xander, and pushing, sliding, setting up a burn.

Shame sizzles away, apologies fray and lift, and when Oz kisses him, they're both *there*, not mouth-fucking, not wrestling for dominance, but thrusting in time and together, like the kiss spread out over their bodies. Envelopes, Xander thinks, and sleeping bags. Warm, tight things, secrets and honesty. The quiet he thought was *in* Oz isn't, it's all around them, even if they're breathing hard and it's so loud with the rain and the rub-part-slap of skin.

He's touching all of Oz he can, palms up the back of his thighs, through soft curling hair, down hard ribs and sharp elbows, feeling it all echoed back, traced deeper on his own skin as they rub faster and the kiss deepens and widens. That familiar tension is prickling out over his back and up his legs, the tightness that comes when he jerks off or Cordy blows him, but Xander *doesn't* feel the need to push in and deep. He rubs faster, pulling Oz up against him, their balls nudging and swinging, and Oz is close, too. Xander feels it all throughout this skinny, sharp little body, the way his skin's heating up and his muscles are going tense and the kiss is shallow because they're both panting and falling and when he starts to come, Oz locks his arm around Xander's neck. Hard to breathe, he's seeing black and gold filigrees and rubbing, rubbing hard enough to lose skin, lose self.

Say goodnight Gracie, goodbye Xander. They're locked together, and after the first shuddering shoot, he doesn't know who's shooting. Warm and *open*, his whole body flying open, collapsing, come all over their stomachs and chests. Exhausted kissing, more like pecks, and he can't see, can't think, can't let go.

He holds onto Oz, rolls over so Oz is blanketing him, all prickly hair and clammy skin, kissing his neck and sucking on his collarbone. Oz pats Xander's head like he's a good, friendly dog, pushes the sweaty hair back, and lies still, sighing and wheezing.

The rain pings the window, the wind rattles the glass, and Xander's gone. Stardust for brains, water in his lungs, eyes burning like acid.

Oz rolls off him, then up close again, leg over Xander's splayed ones, finger playing over Xander's chest.

When the time comes, it's way too soon. Like the reverse of the kiss, it's sharp and small and gets him right in the chest.

Oz, hoarse and shy: "Probably shouldn't do this again."

"Yeah," Xander says, tongue thick. He feels so good, despite the dagger, that he'd probably agree to anything right about now. Always was slow on the uptake. "It's -- wrong."

Rolling onto his side, Oz rests his head on Xander's shoulder. Addresses his nipple. "Not sure about *that*."

"But --"

"Felt good. Pretty sure there was mutual consent."

His laughter twists around the cold dagger, making him choke and splutter. "Ow. Yeah. But -- cheating. And --" He stops himself before he says *gay*. No way is Oz narrow-minded enough to think wrong equals gay; that's Xander's own sad pitiful little issue, his own fucked-up truth.

Oz seems to know what Xander didn't say. It's obvious in the way his eyebrows lift slightly, pucker together, how he purses his lips and shakes his head. Disagreement in one little shake, and Xander feels heat -- the bad kind, the embarrassed kind -- prickle over his face and down his neck. Same as when he says something *really* stupid in the library and Giles blinks at him, astonished all over again at just how thick-headed and *stupid* Xander can be.

He disappoints Oz; the only time he was ever incapable of disappointing Oz was the first night. Even then, he screwed up, but it didn't seem possible that such a thing was possible. Let alone that he'd feel so ill, pit-of-the-stomach and burning-face sick.

"But you *hit* me," Xander says and rubs his jaw. "During the, Amy's spell. Because Will --"

There. That actually makes sense and Oz has to admit, he *has* to, that he hit Xander. Some things are better than the truth; some things are facts.

"'cause you hurt her feelings." Oz touches two sticky fingertips to Xander's jaw, then runs them over his mouth and chin.

"Because she wanted me, and --" Xander stops when Oz taps his jaw and he feels lost again. "Really?"

"Really."

"So why'd you hit me?"

Smiling, eyelids dropping, Oz looks for a second like a kid, like a flirt. "You still upset?"

"No," Xander says. "Don't think so. It's just -- wait. What's the question? Where were we?"

Looking around, Oz keeps smiling, and it keeps getting wider. His hand's still on Xander's jaw. "In bed?"

"You know what I meant."

"We're in bed. You're mad. I punched you. Six months ago."

Xander's nodding along when he finally remembers, when the haze clears in his head. "It's *wrong*, that's where."

Oz presses his lips to Xander's temple. "Yes. Violence is wrong."

"Teasing me."

"A little, yeah."

He'd like to shove Oz away. In jest, mostly, roll over him and kiss him again. Stop having to *talk* and just wrestle until they pass out. Instead, Xander wriggles his arm under Oz's neck and pulls him closer, flush against his side, and with his other hand loosens the comforter, yanking it over them.

"Consequences," Oz says a little later. Like, um. Emotional ripples. Reverberations."

"That's sound."

"Yeah."

"Before, it was motion. Mixing up your metaphors there."

Oz blinks up at him. "Sorry?"

"Yeah," Xander says, feeling good. Flush, not quite so *stabbed*. "Never mix your metaphors. Little word to the wise."

In the dark, Oz's voice is slower, a little rougher, like a sandpaper with lower grit number. "Like crossing the streams?"

"Used to think that was about light sabres," Xander says and stretches, then wiggles further into the sheets.

"What?"

"You know. That crack they make when they hit. Bad thing."

"Part of fighting, though. Got to make contact."

"I *know*," Xander says. "Still."

If his voice is rougher, Oz's lips are softer in the dark, tickling over Xander's ear. "Yeah. Ugly sound."

"Kind of phallic. Kind of, what's the word. Exacerbating."

"What is?"

Xander coughs into his free hand. "Fighting your dad with your penis-substitute. Losing your *hand*. It's all really Freudian."

"Emasculating, you mean?"

"What I said, yeah."

Oz tucks his head under Xander's ear and tightens his hold on his chest. "Never thought of it like that."

"I'm good like that," Xander says. "Insightful. Ought to keep me around."

"I'll say."

Talking in the dark like this is better. He gets odd angles of sight, can hear without looking if he wants, can think and doze and it's okay. Oz isn't linear, but neither is Xander. But they're nonlinear in different ways, and Xander's thinking about maps and lines. Which leads him to roads, and he thinks Oz is like some winding country road, up in wine country or on the poster for that Robert Frost poem in his English classroom. A neat, curvy dirt road through trees and terraced pastures. Xander himself is a traffic snarl, one of those spaghetti loops of freeway, jammed with angry people and honking horns and random acts of frustrated violence.

"Consequences," Oz says again. Later. "Effects on other people."

*Willow*, Xander thinks, then gets the familiar spike of nausea that gushes up whenever 'Willow' comes near 'sex' in his tangled head. "Okay," he says carefully.

"Like, say --" Oz wriggles slightly, his hair brushing Xander's cheek, then looks up. "I mean, how would you feel if I hooked up with Cordy?"

Xander sucks in a breath and tries to let it out slowly. No such luck. "That doesn't count. Cordy's not -- and I'm not, and we aren't --. Doesn't count."

"Say you are, both of you. How would you feel?"

"I'd feel --" Xander closes his eyes. Cordy's strong, and tanned like gold, and *curvy*. She tastes like powder and leather upholstery, and Oz tastes like forests and rain. She'd look beautiful against Oz, he all short white angles, she all luscious curves and hair. Pretty. They're both amazing kissers; they could probably make each other feel awesome. "Weird. Kind of interested, actually."

Oz pinches him, laughing low in his throat; Xander feels the little shakes against his ribcage. "Making this really hard, you know."

"Am I?" Xander's throat hurts, kind of ragged and tight. The knife in his chest, deep and cold, twists again.

Oz's eyes flicker over him, shining despite the cave of quilts and the sliding shadows of the rainy night. Softly, he says, "Yeah."

"Oh." He should probably apologize, but it's not just that he doesn't want to. He can't, not with his chest like this, and his mouth drying out. "You know, Cordy said you'd be an interesting challenge."

"Talked about it?"

"Yeah."

"Really." Oz's voice doesn't curl up. It's not a question.

"Yeah. Said she'd heard -- wait, let me get this right. Intriguing reports of your various talents."

"Huh."

"Of course, she also thinks I'm in --" He can't say it. He can hear it, can hear Cordy's voice, but he can't say it. *In love with Willow*. Love and Willow is white on rice; of course he loves Willow. It's what he feels for other people -- Cordy, Buffy, *Oz* -- that's all mixed and swirly and frequently sickening. "Thinks I'm a loser."

"Soy un perdador," Oz says and hums.

"Pretty much."

In the dark, they're already agreeing. It occurs to Xander that they've always agreed, that the static between them had nothing to do with conflicting goals or crossing the streams, and everything to do with agreeing. He presses his face against the crown of Oz's skull, inhaling shampoo-scent and Ozness, and rests there.

"Not any more," Xander says. When Oz nods, the motion carries Xander's head with it, so they're together inside it. Agreeing and resting here. "How're those cuts?"

"Healing," Oz says, mouth on Xander's collarbone, warm and reverberating.

It's dark and the rain's letting up. He didn't notice before, but it's quieting down as the sky is lightening, bit by bit.

"Good."

"Yeah."

"Got a shirt and stuff for you --" Xander says, later, struggling out of sleep when he remembers.

"In the morning."

"Yeah."


End file.
